Words are my passion. It began as a young child when I lived
in foster homes and a Children’s Home during the Great Depression in the 1930s
and continued through the 1940s. I learned to write and tell stories to
anyone who would listen as a way to connect with the people in my life. I
didn’t understand why my friends and schoolmates lived a different life from
mine: pretty clothes, bicycles, parents who picked them up in big, black cars,
while I wore second-hand clothes and walked everywhere.

My
writing passion flourished during the early 1950s, when as a student nurse, I
learned to write narrative non-fiction in the form of 'nurse’s notes' on
patients' charts that described in detail: how the wound smelled and the color
of the wound drainage. Again, the medium was words.

My next writing journey began in the 1960s with my graduate education to earn a
PhD in Sociology where the predominant medium was numbers. I learned a new form
of thinking and writing that was heavily focused on the manipulation of
quantitative data. Writing science was a challenge because I preferred words to
numbers. But I accepted the challenge and evolved into a social science
researcher, publishing books and articles as an academic sociologist. But my
thirst for narrative non-fiction remained. This hunger led me to my current
journey: creative non–fiction.

Early
in 2000, my husband showed physical signs of a severe neurological disease:
hand tremors, facial tremors, and slightly slurred speech. I began writing a
journal of my observations. On Friday the 13th, 2000, he was diagnosed with
ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. I continued this journal
throughout our journey. Journaling exposed me to myself. I found that sometimes
I wanted the dying to happen sooner so I didn’t have to watch his pain and he
would be free of this ugly disease, but then he would be free of me. The
contradictions loomed large during the journey we shared.

In
my late seventies, I continue to feed my passion as I write my memoirs, Last Flight Out: Living, Loving & Leaving, and Sweet Abandon. Belonging to a literary
community helps me learn, grow, evolve, and connect with other human spirits––a
precious gift.

How
do you live the rest of your life when your doctor says, “You have Lou Gehrig’s
disease, you probably have six months to live. Go out and have fun, do all the
things you’ve wanted to do while you still can and prepare to die?”

Americans
continue to fear death and dying. Comedian Woody Allen said, “I’m not afraid of
death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” Phyllis Langton’s
memoir, Last Flight Out: Living, Loving, & Leaving, is a passionate
love story, one that deepens as she and her husband George Thomas live their
way into the experience of ALS, its unremitting losses and its surprising
gifts, with dignity, keen humor, a fighter pilot’s courage and a nurse’s
unsentimental pragmatism.

“I know what’s going to be on my death certificate.
That’s more than you can say,” George tells her after receiving his diagnosis.
How they are going to live the time that remains to them as a couple is also
not in question, for they are equally committed to savoring every minute,
respecting George Thomas's choices about what makes for a meaningful life, a
meaningful death.

Supporting her husband's wishes is a moral as well as
emotional choice on Langton's part, and definitely not always an easy
one. As a medical sociologist, she invites her readers into an open
discussion of some of these choices through a thoughtful discussion guide.

What readers are saying...

﻿"Phyllis Langton
has had as illustrious a career as anyone in academia, but she has taken
infinite pains now to write a different kind of book. Her story of her
husband's life with and death from ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) yields many a
valuable lesson, but this lesson above all: that dying, whatever its pains, can
be both a negative and a positive experience. Here love and mortality, laughter
and sorrow are all but inseparable, and their inseparability may help lessen a
reader's fear of death and dying. Anyone who enjoys a deeply moving story will
want to read this wondrous, indispensable book, and anybody who faces
adversity, that is to say everybody, will need to read it."

Jeffery
Paine––author of Father India, Re-enchantment, Adventures
with the Buddha, and Tales of Wonder (with Huston Smith). Judge
for the Pulitzer Prize and former vice-president of the National Book Critics
Circle.

"Like many others,
I've not been comfortable with the subject of death––the death of my loved ones
or myself. How lucky we humans are to have Phyllis Langton's story as part of
our lives. This moving book has allowed me to look death in the eye, and even
find a way to laugh about it. Langton shows us that deep love and laughter make
the sorrow and loss bearable, paving the way for this ultimate journey and
beyond. . . ."

Jill
Breckenridge––author of The Gravity of Flesh and Miss Priss and
the Con Man.

“I couldn't put Last
Flight Out down. I wanted it to go on so I could learn more about Phyllis
and George and their story about facing ALS together. George had a terminal
disease and he and Phyllis chose to live and love to the fullest! What an
incredible message to read especially with a disease that takes and takes.”

“Who would have thought
that disease can be a page-turner? But Phyllis Langton's bittersweet memoir of
her fighter-pilot husband's last years shows that a good marriage can be as
joyous in sickness as it is in health. Last Flight Out is a vivid,
sparkling story about facing death with grace and high spirits.”

Mark
Weston—author of Giants of Japan and Prophets and Princes: Saudi
Arabia From Muhammad to the Present.

“Last Flight Out really touched my heart. As the hospice physician who
cared for George, I found the description of the denial of his symptoms
extremely compelling and riveting and it taught me to appreciate more deeply
the psychological defenses which patients use to protect themselves against the
perception of their own vulnerabilities. In addition, this memoir reminds all
who read it of the paramount need to honor and respect a patient's wishes to
control the conditions of care and medical treatment. George achieved a
wonderful peace of mind as his disease relentlessly progressed. Everyone should
be so fortunate to have such a resourceful and loving advocate for their
partner.”